Harry Potter (Books, Literature & Reading) Language Learning Forum

Harry Potter
Tags: Literature \| Comprehension/understanding \| Book
Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading

51 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next >>

songlines
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Message 17 of 51

22 September 2011 at 7:51am | IP Logged

RMM wrote:

You really should keep in mind, though, that each book in the series is harder than the previous one, so that by the time you get to the seventh book, the style, detail, and difficulty level is pretty radically different from that of the first book. This might be good for helping you to “grow” in the language at any rate.

A couple of people have mentioned the Chronicles of Narnia on this thread. I’ve used them also, and I’ve got to say that I think they are better to start with than Harry Potter. They are easier and shorter than the Potter books, so they should cause less aggravation than trying to puzzle through Potter at the very start of your foreign language reading. After Narnia, you should be better prepared for Potter 1 (indeed, even some of the more specialized vocabulary overlaps: witch, magic, Centaurs, giants, unicorns, etc.). However, if you really want to get going with Potter then you should still be able to jump right in, though it will be a bit more difficult.

Yes! - I loved the Narnia books as a child, especially those editions with Pauline Baynes' illustrations. If anyone knows of an audiobook version of the French text, please post a link in this thread!

I've also bought a couple of Philip Pullman's titles the His Dark Materials trilogy. Despite Pullman's antipathy towards Lewis, I happily read both. A bonus for polyglot language learners is that both series have been (according the The Economist ) and the Narnia Portal) translated into forty languages.

And RMM, you're also absolutely right about the increasing difficulty of the Harry Potter series. Plus, once you reach ...Deathly Hallows, you're definitely no longer looking at 200-300 page novels...

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kagemusha
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Message 18 of 51

22 September 2011 at 1:56pm | IP Logged

songlines wrote:

So Jeffers, go ahead and order the 300+ page edition if you wish. It'll match
your English language copy.

Thank you for the clarification. I was at work and didn't have it in front of me.
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songlines
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Message 19 of 51

23 September 2011 at 3:49am | IP Logged

kagemusha wrote:

Thank you for the clarification. I was at work and didn't have it in front of me.

You're welcome.
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prz_
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Message 20 of 51

15 November 2011 at 12:20pm | IP Logged

I've just started reading 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' in Czech. After struggling with many Czech words whilst learning (as I've supposed, calling Czech almost identical with Polish is an enormous mistake), I was surprised how easily I can read it. And the great advantage of this book is repeating the same words several times.
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Serpent
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Message 21 of 51

20 November 2011 at 8:21pm | IP Logged

TerryW wrote:

kanewai wrote:

e.g. start reading the books without having to look up every fourth word in the dictionary.

For the Harry books, why bother with a dictionary, you can just follow along on the corresponding sentences in the English versions of the books.

My favorites are:

              Harry Stone and the Sourcerer's Pottie

                                            and

          Harry Chambers and the Pottie of Secrets

My apologies if "toilet humor" is not allowed on here.   ;-)

haha then my fave is Harry Azkaban and the Prisoner of Pottie :D I haven't read these though:
Harry Order and the Pottie of the Phoenix
Harry Blood and the Prince Half-Pottie
Harry Deathly and the Pottie Hallows

:) I'm currently L-R'ing the 4th book in Romanian, also have the audiobooks in Italian, Spanish, Polish and the first one in Finnish :)
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songlines
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Message 22 of 51

10 May 2012 at 5:16pm | IP Logged

For anyone who owns a Kindle: Amazon's announced that on June 19th all seven of the Harry Potter books will be
available in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, in the following languages:   English, French, Italian, German, and
Spanish.

I don't have a Kindle; but the blurb on Amazon.com says "with the Kindle Owners' Lending Library there are no
due dates, you can borrow as frequently as once a month, and there are no limits on how many people can
simultaneously borrow the same title - so you never have to wait in line for a book".   The "once a month" part
seems to me that you can't then borrow two copies of a HP title, one in your L1, and the other in your
target language, and use them as parallel texts.   But perhaps if you already have another, purchased (not
"borrowed") copy of the HP, that would work for parallel text reading?

Not to derail the thread, but does someone know how much KOLL membership costs? I see a mention of
"Amazon Prime" membership - does that include KOLL? And am I correct in my reading of the blurb, that this
means you can only borrow one book at a time, for a maximum of 12 books a year?

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geoffw
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Message 23 of 51

10 May 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged

Amazon Prime membership gets you the lending privileges, but I don't think it's a prerequisite. Also remember that you can buy the books at the pottermore online shop, too, in case that suits you better. As I'm someone who likes to read 5-10 different books at the same time...
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Snowflake
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Message 24 of 51

10 May 2012 at 10:19pm | IP Logged

　　家住女贞路4号的德思礼夫妇总是得意地� �� 他们是非常规矩的人家。拜-托，拜托了。� �� 从来跟神秘古怪的事不沾边，因为他们根本� ��相信那些邪门歪道。

That's the first paragraph from the first book, in simplified Chinese, which had been posted online a while back. I had previously purchased the paper edition of the book which matches maybe 95-99% of the downloaded version. And to make sure I got the official translation, not a knock-off, my paper book was purchased from Amazon in the US. Incidentally, I've heard that the traditional character translation is different than the simplified version.

Edited by Snowflake on 16 May 2012 at 11:57pm

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